When I first met Dolly de Leon before the release of Nine Perfect Strangers’ second season, the Golden Globe-nominated actress was firmly mum about the trajectory of her character, Sister Agnes.
We chatted instead about her favorite binge-worthy shows (The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and The Pitt) and what type of element bender she’d be in the world of Avatar :The Last Airbender, now that she’s officially joined the cast of the Netflix live action remake (she said she’d be the Avatar). When pressed about Sister Agnes’ backstory, de Leon simply played coy. “She’s not your traditional kind of nun,” she told Rolling Stone Philippines. “If you watch the series, you’ll find out why.”
Well, we finally found out. For the uninitiated, Nine Perfect Strangers follows overly medicated wellness guru Masha Dmitrichenko (Nicole Kidman) running psychedelic experiments on nine guests at an Austrian retreat. The third episode, which just dropped on Prime Video on May 29, turns the spotlight onto one of the guests: the enigmatic ex-nun, Sister Agnes. Without giving too much away, after she gets high from the first “treatment,” Sister Agnes spirals into hallucinations and relives the violent, tragic reasons why she left the Order.
Rolling Stone Philippines caught up with de Leon about stepping into Sister Agnes’ tortured past, her own connection to faith, and whether or not she’d be game to try out Miss Dmitrichenko’s shroomed-up treatment.
This interview has been edited for brevity.
What was it like playing an ex-nun?
It was really tough. It required a lot of preparation and a lot of conversations with our director, Jonathan Levine, and Rachel Shukert, who initially wrote the episode. I also spoke to friends who are knowledgeable about Christianity, Catholicism, psychiatry, everything!
I was very nervous about Agnes’ backstory because I didn’t want to offend any of the nuns or any of the Catholics. But in the end, we decided to just make sure to take care of her character and to handle her story with respect.
[Agnes] has lived her whole life according to the word of God, in service of Him since she was a child. She always wanted to be a nun and started early, right after high school, and so her whole life has been devoted to God and her fellow men. It was really quite delicate to deal with someone with that kind of passion and belief in a supreme being.
Are you religious?
I believe in God, but I’m not religious. I was born and raised in a Catholic family, went to a Catholic school, but I don’t practice. I do still believe in God, and I do still pray. I still have a great respect for the faith. Sometimes I still make the sign of the cross because I feel like it’s a telephone call to God: you have to make the sign first so that he’ll hear you. I still have it in me!
Have you ever had a crisis of faith?
I had a lot of questions, especially as a teenager, about why the world is the way it is, why bad things happen to good people, why children get sick, things like that.
How did you feel after wrapping Episode 3?
Well, with TV, I don’t think I get that involved with the characters that I play. I don’t take the experience home with me or anything that causes any kind of trauma. I was just relieved that it was over because it was not an easy thing to shoot.
No method acting for you?
Oh, no, no. Maybe in some ways I’m kind of method, but not that deeply. I don’t think I can be that type of actor: It would take away the fun of creating for me. But, you know, respect to those who do it. It’s just not my style.
Do you feel like the treatment’s working for Sister Agnes?
Well, sometimes we have to go through something really tough for us to come out stronger. Things need to happen to us. We need to fall, trip, or make mistakes so that we rise above everything and continue to believe in ourselves. We need to believe that we can learn from our mistakes, learn, and grow from the drama. I think that’s the case with Agnes.
Would you ever go through a treatment like this?
I would absolutely do it. I’m all for progressive means of finding solutions to problems. I believe in a lot of New World kinds of medicine, and I believe that psilocybin [the mushrooms used in the treatment] has healing problems if managed correctly and if regulate. If I were with a medical expert, I would definitely do something like that.
Would you?
Oh, I mean, maybe not at Nicole Kidman’s resort! It really needs more regulations.
But that’s the thing, right? In Agnes’ case, sometimes when you’re going through something and you’ve been searching for answers for so long and you’re just desperate to be healed… this might be the only way.
Also, I don’t know if you noticed, but among all the other strangers, she’s the one with the most open heart and mind. She really wants to be healed and to see real changes in herself. Because can you imagine hearing God’s voice all your life, and then suddenly it stops?
